Receiver circuit having an optical reception device are known in which light incident on the optical reception device—for example, light from an optical waveguide of an optical data transmission system—is detected by the optical reception device with formation of an electrical signal (e.g. a photocurrent) and the electrical signal is subsequently amplified by the amplifier connected downstream.
An optical receiver circuit having an optical reception device and having an amplifier connected downstream is described for example in the article “High Gain Transimpedance Amplifier in InP-Based HBT Technology for the Receiver in 40-Gb/s Optical-Fiber TDM Links” (Jens Müllrich, Herbert Thurner, Ernst Müllner, Joseph F. Jensen, Senior Member, IEEE, William E. Stanchina, Member, IEEE, M. Kardos, and Hans-Martin Rein, Senior Member, IEEE—IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, vol. 35, No. 9, September 2000, pages 1260 to 1265). In the case of this receiver circuit, at the input end there is a differentially operated transimpedance amplifier—that is to say a differential amplifier—connected by one input to a photodiode as reception device. The other input of the differentially operated transimpedance amplifier is connected to a DC amplifier which feeds a “correction current” into the differential amplifier for the purpose of offset correction of the photocurrent of the photodiode. The magnitude of this “correction current” that is fed in amounts to half the current swing of the photodiode during operation.
An optical receiver circuit is always subject to noise. In the case of an optical receiver circuit having a transimpedance amplifier, the most important noise sources are the input transistor of the transimpedance amplifier and the transimpedance impedance.
There is a need for receiver circuits which have a favorable noise behavior.